Medicaid expansion

At least one conservative Harris County Commissioner won't yield to ideological zeal.

It's hard to say that Texas is taking care of its own needs when it mandates the county provide health care for poor residents while simultaneously blocking the funds. In Harris County, the hospital district's budget is stretched to the limit, and this county is no exception.

Photo: D. Fahleson, Staff

Leave it to another leftist, commie Obama-loving liberal on the Harris County Commissioner's Court to expose his true colors. No, it's not County Judge Ed Emmett. This time it's Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack.

Radack actually is one of the most outspoken conservatives on the court, but, like Emmett, he doesn't allow ideological zeal to undermine sensible public policy. He's now challenging state Republican leaders to accept the millions of dollars in Medicaid money that could be flowing into Harris County if not for the anti-Obama creed to which Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt and others pay blind fealty.

Both Radack and Emmett make the obvious point that the only way commissioners might be able to lower taxes for county residents is for the state to accept Medicaid expansion, thereby easing the burden on Harris Health System of caring for an estimated 70,000 uninsured patients. When uninsured patients can't pay their bills, the Harris County taxpayer assumes the burden, to the tune of more than $70 million annually. (Each penny of tax brings in roughly $40 million, so it's easy to do the math on $70 million.)

Under the Medicaid expansion plan that Texas continues to resist, the state would have received an estimated $100 billion over a decade while increasing program eligibility to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. That eligibility figure covers many of the thousands of uninsured Texans who end up in hospital emergency rooms when they can't pay for preventive care, doctor's visits or necessary medical treatment.

Abbott and other state officials insist that Obamacare is broken and that Texas should be able to take care of its own health-care situation without federal interference.

With due respect to our elected officials, the argument has more to do with raw politics than with legitimate differences over health-care policy. The truth is, Obamacare may be flawed but it's not broken. And it's hard to say that Texas is taking care of its own needs when it mandates the county provide health care for poor residents while simultaneously blocking the funds. In Harris County the hospital district's budget is stretched to the limit, and this county is no exception.

"Everybody wants to somehow make it an issue about the Affordable Care Act, and it's really not," Emmett told the Chronicle a few days ago. "It's really an issue of which taxpayers are going to pay for indigent health care in Harris County or any urban county."

If anything good has come from the presidential candidacy of Donald J. Trump, it is that his blusterous campaign has exposed the political shenanigans of so many elected officials, from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who vowed to undercut everything President Obama tried to do regardless of whether it was good for the nation, down to a Texas governor who prefers making political points to addressing the needs of fellow Texans. Medicaid expansion is a prime example.

When it comes to health-care funding - and the possibility of lowering property taxes by a significant amount - that commie liberal on the Harris County Commissioners Court has exposed the political perfidy. "I'm going to keep talking about it, absolutely I'm going to talk about it," Radack told the Chronicle. "I can't find anybody who can give me a good reason why we shouldn't pursue this funding."

Radack knows, as do most business and health-care leaders and many local officials across Texas, that there is no good reason. His yapping may be futile, given the state's political climate, but we hope he keeps talking.